


Croissants and Coffee

by Delphi



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, First Meetings, Flirting, Law Enforcement, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-05
Updated: 2011-05-05
Packaged: 2017-10-19 00:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of Hogwarts, all Slytherin upperclassmen are taken into custody; Blaise Zabini plans to charm his way out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Croissants and Coffee

Blaise Zabini, age eighteen, had never been under arrest before. His poor mother, however, had an unfortunate history with overzealous Aurors, and she had once offered him the following advice:

“They try to seduce you, Aurors. That's what an interrogation is. They'll ply you with tea if they think you're stupid, and with cigarettes if they think you're wicked, but one way or another, they intend to get what they want from you. The trick, my dearest darling, is to seduce them first."

The interrogation room was narrow, cold, and brightly lit. Blaise sat upright in a bare wooden chair, fighting off the urge to shiver. They had not even let him bring a cloak, and his school robes provided little warmth in a room without a fire this far underground. After being made to wait for what he was certain was a deliberately interminable length of time, he heard footsteps approaching on the other side of the door, and he straightened his shirt cuffs and collar before rubbing his hands briskly together and folding them neatly on the table.

Who had they sent for him? The pale, round-faced woman who had herded every Slytherin upperclassman from the singed halls of Hogwarts into the Ministry holding cells, perhaps? Or maybe their guard, an easily amused fellow who liked to trail a walking stick along the rows of iron bars as he paced back and forth. Blaise had thus far been quietly but scrupulously polite to both of them, unlike some of his more stupid classmates who were at this moment hailing the Dark Lord and screaming for their solicitors.

Ms. Livia Zabini had not raised a fool.

The door opened, and Blaise's left eyebrow rose sharply. The man who entered was not one he had met before: a tall, dark and handsome stranger with impressive shoulders under a rather passable set of French-cut burgundy robes and a dark blue cloak. For a moment, Blaise's confidence faltered. He was well-practiced at intriguing his classmates, awkward adolescents that they were, and at the charming of doddering old professors, but his interactions with mature men had thus far been limited to his mother's well-supervised salons.

"I'm Auror Shacklebolt," the man said in a rich, low voice, placing a paper bag and two take-away cups on the table and sliding gracefully into the chair opposite Blaise.

The unmistakable aroma of caffè marocchino rose from the cups. As Blaise watched, the man removed two large pastries from the paper bag. Where exactly, he wondered, did ham and brie croissants fall on the spectrum of sinfulness between tea and tobacco?

"I thought you might be hungry, Mr. Zabini."

His stomach quietly growled, and his lips were dry as they parted, but he resisted the urge to snatch up a croissant. "Do call me Blaise."

The Auror smiled, and Blaise mirrored the arc of it precisely in his own smile.

He picked up a cup and warmed his hands around it. His lips formed a soft moue as he blew at the steam. "And do you have a given name, Auror Shacklebolt?"

The man hesitated, and Blaise took a drink of the sweet coffee. Eyelashes lowered, he stealthily caught the appreciative once-over to which he was subject.

"Kingsley," Auror Shacklebolt finally said.

It suited him, Blaise decided. Overtly masculine with a touch of refinement. Not as simple as either-or: the robes said “gentleman,” but the gold hoop in his left ear said “rogue.” Wizard born and bred, certainly.

 _Focus_ , he chided himself. He was trying to effect his freedom, not instigate a liaison. Unless, of course, it took the latter to realise the former.

"Kingsley," he said, mimicking the warm way his mother wielded a name. "Thank you very much for the coffee. Would it be possible to get a message to my mother? She's bound to be worried."

Kingsley picked up the other cup, which was slightly dwarfed in his large hands. He sipped it delicately. "Would your mother be _Livia_ Zabini?"

"She would." He waited until Kingsley had picked up one of the croissants before taking the other for himself.

"I met her once. After the death of your stepfather."

Blaise rather wisely decided not to ask which one. "May I write her a note?"

"You can contact her as soon as we're finished here."

He was tempted to ask when that would be, but he decided that wouldn't be welcome. Co-operation would please an Auror, and asking questions under the guise of answering them pleased Blaise. "All right. What would you like to know?"

Kingsley smiled at him again. He was very good at that. He had a way of making it touch his eyes, a technique that Blaise had yet to master. "Which NEWTs were you planning to sit?"

He did not let the surprise show on his face, and instead took a bite of his croissant and chewed thoughtfully. The past tense was, he suspected, supposed to be a veiled threat. "Potions, Defence Against the Dark Arts, Arithmancy, Astronomy, History, Charms, Transfiguration, and Herbology. And I still plan to sit them."

"That's admirable, after what you've been through." The man all but radiated false sympathy, leaning forward seriously, his fingers loosely laced. He had very nice hands.

Blaise turned the words over for traces of irony. If it was sarcasm, it was subtle. He took another bite of croissant and a drink of coffee. "I didn't remain at the school for my health."

Kingsley chuckled. It was a warming sound. "I'm surprised you stayed at all."

He shrugged easily. "Beauxbatons closed itself to transfers. Mother and I don't follow politics anyhow."

"What happened at Hogwarts was more than politics."

Blaise did not think that was necessarily so. He could trace his family line back to Ptolemy, and he hardly intended to have the tantrums of a secret society, in _costume_ no less, define his own era, but he acknowledged the point demurely. "I'm sure you know much more about it than I do."

"And after your NEWTs? Any plans?"

"A world tour, to start with. Then I'll be expected to come home and manage the family holdings. I might pursue a profession." For the first time since he had been disarmed and led away from the school, he felt a frisson of fear that perhaps there would be no ferry to Calais, no future at all. He shivered.

"Are you cold?" Kingsley asked, frowning faintly.

"A little. How far down are we?"

"Quite a ways." Kingsley stood up and came around the table, and before Blaise knew what was happening, that dark blue cloak was being wrapped around him.

It was surprisingly heavy and still warm from the man's body, and it held the faint scent of some not-unpleasant cologne or shaving lotion. He looked up, keenly aware of the back of his head coming to rest against a broad chest, and of the large hands securing the cloak around his shoulders. Up close, Auror Shacklebolt looked tired, his eyes bloodshot and his handsome mouth tight. There was a hint of stubble on his cheeks.

"Thank you," Blaise said quietly, warming up quickly. And then, taking a chance: "Are you always so considerate of people you intend to send to prison?"

That expert smile returned. "We're only having a conversation, Blaise."

His acquiescent nod was wasted upon the man's back as Kingsley returned to his seat. A conversation. What would an innocent man be concerned about in such a conversation? "Is it true,” he asked, “that Professor Snape has been killed?"

The smile faded, and Kingsley nodded solemnly. "I'm sorry, but it seems he was. Were you close?"

"He was my head of house for six years."

"That isn't an answer."

He nearly sniffed despite himself. "I take it you weren't a Slytherin."

"Hufflepuff."

Blaise tidily finished his croissant. He felt better with something in his stomach. "An under-appreciated house. What I meant is that Professor Snape had my full respect, and I'm very sorry to hear he's dead."

"Would it surprise you to learn that he died fighting against the Death Eaters to protect the school?"

Ah. His mother owed him ten galleons. "No."

Kingsley arched an eyebrow, looking impressed. Blaise's cheeks warmed, and he pinched his arm beneath the cloak. _Focus_. He blamed a lack of sleep and, he supposed, the fact that he had just seen quite a few people he knew killed.

"Most of your classmates didn't take the news so easily."

Blaise shrugged. It was a particular gesture he had made a hundred times over the last seven years. It meant: “It is not my fault that most of my classmates are stupid.” In the holding cells, they were saying that Harry Potter had murdered Professor Snape—had slit his throat, or else had set a snake upon him. Everyone knew that Potter was a Parselmouth.

"Professor Snape," he finally said, "was Head of Slytherin under Professor Dumbledore and Headmaster under the Death Eaters. Obviously, he was lying to one of them. And having been a student under both regimes, I can vouch that it was much harder to get one by Professor Dumbledore." He paused. "Are you quite sure that Professor Snape is really—"

"Yes," Kingsley said, softly but with certainty.

"Ah," Blaise muttered.

"You admired him."

It was said with such certainty that Blaise looked up sharply, startled that something in his voice might have betrayed him. A lucky guess, he decided, and rolled with it. He tilted his head just so, regarding Kingsley at an angle through slightly lowered eyelashes. "I have a weakness for ethical men."

For an instant he saw what he sought: a flash of heat in those wide, dark eyes. Then, bizarrely, the man laughed.

"I'm sorry. I've heard all sorts of surprising praise for Severus Snape in the last twenty-four hours, but 'ethical' isn't a word that's come up."

Blaise shrugged again. His thumb and forefinger stroked the edge of the cloak, rubbing back and forth in a motion that soon had the Auror's attention back where it belonged. "He was attracted to me. And he didn't hold that against me.”

Unlike, he thought, a certain other late headmaster who, whether he fully realised it or not, had a barely veiled mistrust for pretty boys with manners. “As if anyone ever chose to be put on a pedestal,” his mother was fond of saying. “It’s dull and draughty up there, and one is always at risk of falling off.”

"Were you involved with him?" Kingsley asked. There was no obvious censure in his voice, only curiosity. That was a good sign.

"Of course not. As I said, he was an ethical man." He pushed his cup aside and leaned forward, nearly draping himself across the table with an arch of his back. "And as you're an ethical man, yourself, I suppose there's no chance that we could come to an understanding if I let you—"

He was interrupted as Kingsley leaned forward too, arms crossed on the table and his breath warm on Blaise's cheek. Blaise's heartbeat quickened, his palms prickling with sweat.

"You can drop the act," Kingsley murmured.

Blaise nearly fell back in his chair, but with a faint twist and a disregard for a bruised shoulder, he managed to salvage it into something resembling a graceful slump. "I don't know what you mean."

Kingsley withdrew something from his pocket. It was a wand—Blaise's own. Twelve inches, elm, with a core of unicorn hair. Blaise licked his lips uncertainly, his stomach tensing to see it in another's hand.

"We've been performing _Prior Incanto_ on all wands confiscated from Hogwarts. The last spell performed by yours was the Vitreous Humourless curse. A nasty bit of dark magic..."

He bit his tongue hard to keep from cutting in.

"...and very distinctive, for obvious reasons. Only one person removed from Hogwarts had raisins for eyes. Gaius Jugson, a Death Eater." Kingsley smiled that gentle smile once more. "I know you fought for the school, Blaise."

Blaise reached for his cup and drank the rest of his coffee in three hot swallows. His shoulders sagged just slightly. "Then why am I here?"

"I thought you might appreciate it if it looked as though we interrogated you, in case certain classmates of yours got any ideas. And I thought you might want something to eat, in case it took you a while to find your way home."

Blaise smiled in turn, and this time it was his real smile: amused and slightly smug. "And you wanted a break."

Kingsley chuckled. "Maybe. It's been a very long day."

"I know," Blaise said, his gaze dropping for an instant to the cold stone floor.

His wand was held out, and he took it, his fingers brushing against Kingsley's. Then Kingsley stood and opened the door, and Blaise followed him out into the corridor, which was noticeably warmer and more kindly lit.

"Severus Snape would be proud of you," Kingsley said softly.

Blaise did not reply as he allowed himself to be steered by a hand at the small of his back to the admitting desk, where the braces and pocket book and calling card case that had been confiscated from him were waiting. He did not necessarily think that Kingsley was right. Professor Snape had always struck him as jealous and, moreover, profoundly unlucky. While Blaise himself...well, his mother had often said that she had borne the misfortune of seven women just so her son could be fated for better things.

It had been pure luck that the first person to break into the barricaded prefect’s quarters where Blaise had decided to hole up and read until the unpleasantness blew over had been a Death Eater. Strange, how hexing one unpleasant man wielding a wand was so much better than hexing another.

“Shacklebolt,” someone called out, and Blaise was aware of Kingsley leaving his side. He turned and watched over-shoulder as the man stepped aside with one of his colleagues.

Then he collected his things and slipped into one of the open lifts, intending to place a fire-call to his mother from the nearest public hearth and be home in time for dinner. Or breakfast or lunch, as the case above-ground might be. As the doors of the lift were shutting, he caught one more glimpse of broad shoulders under burgundy robes, and he wondered idly just how long it would take for Auror Shacklebolt to come calling to retrieve his cloak.


End file.
